City of Jackson repeals spay and neuter ordinance, reviews poverty data

JACKSON, Tenn.– Due to a technical error the first time, the City of Jackson’s spay and neuter ordinance is officially repealed after three votes.

“Looking at the enforce ability, we’ve had no one sign up to pay the fee,” Jackson Mayor Scott Conger said.

The ordinance was in effect for one year.

“I’m going to go with the words of our director. It wasn’t a bad move, maybe ill-timed. We need to get more things in place first before we go to that step,” Conger said.

All votes were unanimous in council Tuesday including consideration of a contract with express employment professionals to hire two people, a city engineer and an internal auditor. That will cost 20% of that person’s salary if the hire is made through the service.

“Outside of that, we’re doing our own publishing, our own search. So, if we hire someone outside of that, outside of the companies, then it costs us nothing,” Conger said.

The city council also addressed another topic they committed to focusing on last year: poverty in the city. United Way president Matt Marshall gave a presentation on his findings during the meeting.

“I think the numbers speak for themselves. You look at the average household income is $45,000, the average budget survival needed is $49,000. We’ll see more people in that gap of ALICE, what we used to call ‘The Working Poor’, will slip down into poverty,” Conger said.

Then Marshall and Lauren Kirk, City of Jackson’s Director of Performance Management, made suggestions how to combat it. They proposed making policies on predatory loan companies, working with the police department on social projects, and creating affordable housing in the city.

“What’s going to happen if we don’t try? We’ve had so many opportunities, especially as it relates to youth in our community that we could invest just a little more, and I think we’ll see an incredible return on that investment,” Kirk said.

Three council members committed on the spot to joining the committee.

As we’ve previously reported, the city council also unanimously voted to spend over $100,000 on police equipment. Conger said this was previously budgeted and some of the money is coming from an over budgeted item in the streets department.